Well, I'm playing some live music tonight, so that's always fun and will probably end up making my day a little more than this but...

I walked into Philo class today listening to Show Don't Tell, then as I noticed the professor talking to the student in front of me (and that there were like two minutes till class started), I slipped out my headphones and continued rocking in my head while playing that riff on my air bass. I'll preface this here with saying my philosophy professor is a pretty young guy, maybe a couple years out of grad school. Lo and behold, most of the students now in class, the professor calls out my name with like a minute to spare and says he's noticed me playing air instruments before in class and wanted to know if I played any real instruments. After that little conversation, which I'm familiar with having, things got interesting. he asked me if I had a favorite song. I answered with Bohemian Rhapsody. He was surprised, maybe even impressed, then asked me what I liked so much about it. This is where I'm starting to think, "okay class has started by now, and my philosophy professor is continuing a discussion about my favorite song with me in front of the whole class, giving me the so rare opportunity to discuss my taste in music in some real depth in a public setting." I was a little flattered but I kept my cool, answering deftly and with feeling. He asked me when it had first become my favorite song, then when I'd first heard it, then if I must be a pretty big Queen fan. Now here's where I'm thinking, "holy cheese, is this about to actually happen right now, I get to talk about my favorite band in front of the whole class?" And it was true, I said they're my favorite band. Then he really impressed me...he said he had a question for me, he prefaced something like "so Brian May and Roger Taylor have been touring with Adam Lambert for some time now," and went on to ask me my thoughts about whether or not one could consider that Queen. On one hand, I thought, "wow, this is cool, cuz this is actually a philosophical topic about my favorite band," but on the other hand I was like "holy cheese, this guy knows Queen? He just name dropped Brian May and Roger Taylor, and knows about their touring with Adam? Color me super impressed." I gave my thoughts on that, which I've mentioned on here before, and somewhere in all of this I gave a short (actually short) schpeal on Queen's overall likability and mega-hits that everyone knows, and he then went on to ask me, in the most surprising part of the conversation (especially since we must've been like five minutes into class time now), "say Roger were to retire from touring, but Brian were to want to go on..." He took a second trying to come up with a replacement drummer off the top of his head, trying for Phil Collins, where I reminded him that Phil can't drum anymore, then went for Neil Peart, before remembering his retirement and mentioned something about arthritis, then settled on John Bonham Jr. I was like, completely shocked he was just able to not only name drop those guys, and be holding this conversation with me, but had been actually fairly up to date on their conditions and knew who was good and could handle the material. the conversation ended pretty quickly after I gave my answer to that before he realized we were into class time and the whole class had just had to listen to our discussion, but he ended saying he had his own thoughts about the matter and would like to keep talking about it later.

So that was legit awesome. He didn't just have the curiosity about my life and interests that many professors have about their students, he had a pretty well established knowledge of rock music and wanted to discuss it with me, while slipping in some philosophy about at what point one could consider a band still a band with so many lineup changes. This guy might just make my semester.

That's really neat. I was kind of introverted in college so I didn't interact on a personal level with my professors a ton of times. When I did, though, I think I learned as much or more from those times than I did in class.

Follow up, I was just e-mailing my professor with a question about a project we're doing, and our e-mail chain devolved into an evaluation of his Rush references.

As of today morning I was 201.8 pounds before breakfast. My doctor said at my last physical that I should be nearly 190. Lost 10 pounds since the holidays. Been eating good and light and getting a lot of fiber heavy cereal and organic vegan foods at Sprouts like brussel sprouts and asparagus and drinking cleanser tea.

As of today morning I was 201.8 pounds before breakfast. My doctor said at my last physical that I should be nearly 190. Lost 10 pounds since the holidays. Been eating good and light and getting a lot of fiber heavy cereal and organic vegan foods at Sprouts like brussel sprouts and asparagus and drinking cleanser tea.

As of today morning I was 201.8 pounds before breakfast. My doctor said at my last physical that I should be nearly 190. Lost 10 pounds since the holidays. Been eating good and light and getting a lot of fiber heavy cereal and organic vegan foods at Sprouts like brussel sprouts and asparagus and drinking cleanser tea.

My son and his wife returned from their 6 week honeymoon in Vietnam ... so he and I had a good chat to catch up on a few things until we can all have a proper family gathering together. Everyone is doing well and their little puppy Winston III was so happy to see them as he experienced some stress. It's funny how the windy winter finally eased up here just about as soon as they arrived.

The thought of waking up tomorrow morning and thinking "Damn, I'm retired - I don't have to go to work any more!"
Ah, freedom!

My dad’s been retired for about 15 years. Relaxing and doing only stuff you enjoy every day...man, that’s the dream. In fact, he & mom have been on vacation visiting family in the Philippines for the last month plus.